


Heavy in Your Arms

by Laurasauras



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Couch Cuddles, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Lalonde Personpain, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Pining, Strider Manpain, Touch-Starved, an attempt at an ethical transition from client/therapist to relationship, professional cuddler, that i'm gonna say is successful but honestly it's fanfic so just go with it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 08:42:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29043315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laurasauras/pseuds/Laurasauras
Summary: Dave is so touch-starved that he flinches away when anyone tries to touch him. He hires a professional cuddler in an effort to work past his issues.
Relationships: Dave Strider & Karkat Vantas, Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, Rose Lalonde & Dave Strider
Comments: 92
Kudos: 218





	1. "Coming out of my cage and I've been doing just fine" and other lies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [swordguy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/swordguy/gifts).



> This is set in some future time when the current situation is not happening.
> 
> I've tagged this DaveKat even though Karkat's a total professional. Mostly because it's _crazy_ emotional and physical intimacy, but also because I'm really tempted to continue in a shippy (but ethical!) direction.
> 
> For Max, because he has such good ideas that I keep pinching them. <3

Maybe it would be better if it was a sex thing. Like, people do weird shit for sex, you absolutely know people who fetishise intimacy, maybe you should be passing this off as a sex thing. The forms were very clear that it’s not a sex thing, but you could think of it that way to make yourself feel microscopically less pathetic. Or is that disrespectful? Maybe creepy? Christ, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it at all. But something needs to be done. Maybe you’ll just tell Rose it’s a sex thing when she finds out. Like, you know she’s going to find out. Probably when you compulsively tell her.

You cleaned your apartment for this. But then you thought that was trying too hard, so you created some mess. Not, like, god . . . you didn’t open a bag of cheetos on the couch or anything. You just stacked some shit on the coffee table like you hadn’t put it away and threw a jumper over the kitchen bench and wow, you’re trying pretty hard for a guy who doesn’t want to look like he is trying too hard. You knocked a lamp over and then stood it up again. That was probably too far.

Now you’re waiting, sitting on the edge of the couch, ready to leap to answer the door when you hear a knock. Well, ready to wait three seconds and then do that, so they don’t think you’re like, desperate or anything. 

You _are_ desperate. That’s the whole point. You’re desperate enough for touch that you’ve hired someone who willingly calls themself a “professional cuddler” to come and help you not die every time your fingers brush the cashiers when taking back your change. “Professional cuddler”. What an oxymoron. But you’re the one paying for it.

You do leap to your feet when you hear the door and you do count _1-2-3_ under your breath in a rush that is definitely not three seconds, and then you short out, fingers just grazing the doorknob. _C’mon, man,_ you tell yourself. _If you’re not comfortable you can ask them to leave and they just will, they’re a professional._ You open the door.

The troll on the other side is shorter than you by about half a head, has horns barely peeking out of a mass of dark curls, and definitely looks cuddly. Just soft, somehow. You’ve never really thought of trolls as soft. You nod in greeting.

‘You from the place?’ you ask.

The guy looks amused.

‘I’m Karkat, are you Dave?’

‘Yup,’ you say. You step robotically backwards and hold the door open. Karkat walks in. 

You watch as Karkat looks around the room, hands deep in your pockets to keep from cracking your knuckles anxiously. It’s torture, knowing that you’re about to be touched and being absolutely unable to initiate anything. It’s making the loneliness spike, just like it does at tiny touches from strangers that you know mean nothing, and you have to grit your teeth to keep from getting emotional.

‘Nice home,’ Karkat says. His voice sounds like he’s a hardcore smoker and has been for approximately 60 years, but he’s clearly in his 20s and he doesn’t smell like smoke. It’d be a good voice for radio. A good voice for this, too. Warm. And with a tone like he genuinely does like your place, which you feel stupidly grateful for.

Karkat cocks his head very slightly to the right. You realise you never replied, or even made any kind of gesture or expression at his comment. You follow up on this by not moving a muscle. Karkat smiles encouragingly. You stay still. With your shades, you probably don’t look fucking petrified. You probably look like an asshole. You’re okay with this.

‘Okay,’ Karkat says. ‘Do you mind if I put my things on your coffee table?’

 _Things?_ you wonder. Politeness pressures you as much as anything else to say, ‘Go ahead.’

“Things” turn out to be keys, wallet, phone. You watch Karkat’s movements. They’re comfortable, like he feels at home enough to just put his stuff wherever, but still careful, like he doesn’t want to somehow hurt the coffee table by putting his phone on it, which is kind of ridiculous but also . . . you wish you knew how to feel about any of this. He takes his shoes off too. His socks have little red crabs on them with enormous and angry eyebrows.

‘Would you like to start with a hug?’ Karkat asks, holding his arms out.

You take two steps backwards. Big ones. And then wince at yourself. You’re fucking this up. How the fuck are you fucking _this_ up.

Karkat drops his arms and smiles again. 

‘I want you to be comfortable,’ he says. 

‘I’m comfortable,’ you say. 

The absurdity of that statement hangs in the air like a particularly graceless pinata that isn’t dropping candy even after half the party has taken a stick to it.

‘Do you want to sit on the couch together?’ Karkat says.

See, that sounds reasonable. But you are _terrified_ of it, and you have _no_ idea why. You realise you have your own arms wrapped around yourself like you can somehow get the contact you need from yourself. 

‘Can I sit here?’ Karkat asks, pointing at the couch. You nod. He picks up his phone as he sits and starts to text. While you’re aware that you’re _thoroughly_ killing any cuddle-adjacent vibe in here, this strikes you as rude. But then your phone buzzes in your pocket.

KARKAT: IS THIS BETTER?  
DAVE: oh yeah this is totally revving my platonic intimacy motor  
DAVE: that babys growling at harley levels just completely disturbing the neighbourhood  
DAVE: some fancy broad having brunch drops her toast  
DAVE: are you happy karkat you ruined brunch  
KARKAT: IT’S OKAY TO EASE INTO THINGS.  
DAVE: should i go into the other room just in case there isnt enough room for jesus in here  
DAVE: the bible never specifies how fat jesus was  
DAVE: i mean the dude could multiply bread and fish he was not a hungry motherfucker

Karkat snorts. You take this to mean that you have won cuddle therapy. Except that you couldn’t even sit next to the guy.

KARKAT: MAYBE YOU COULD SIT DOWN. IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE NEXT TO ME.  
KARKAT: SERIOUSLY, WHEREVER YOU’RE COMFORTABLE.

You wouldn’t be comfortable in your room with a stranger in your living room. You slouch across to the camp-chair that you got because it was cheaper than a dining chair. So cheap that some would even call it “free”. You don’t actually have a nice place, but it was cool of Karkat to say so.

KARKAT: JUST TO GET IT OUT OF THE WAY, IS IT A ME THING OR A YOU THING? BECAUSE YOU CAN GET SOMEONE ELSE, THEY WON’T EVEN CHARGE YOU FOR THIS SESSION IF YOU DON’T WANT ME FOR LITERALLY ANY REASON.  
DAVE: oh my god no  
DAVE: you look  
DAVE: super cuddle worthy  
KARKAT: COOL.  
KARKAT: DO YOU WANT TO JUST CHAT OR DO YOU WANT TO TELL ME WHY YOU HIRED ME?  
DAVE: uhhhh  
DAVE: yeah i think id feel like an avoidant douchebag if i didnt just say it  
DAVE: okay so my family wasnt big on hugs  
DAVE: or contact of any kind  
DAVE: like best i got was if i hurt myself theyd put a bandaid on or whatever

Stretching the truth somewhat, but you’ve learned that people don’t react well to your childhood stories. 

DAVE: and i built my brand on being some kind of cool kid  
DAVE: definitely not the kind of guy you get up close and personal with  
DAVE: like the guy you fistbump maybe but thats it  
DAVE: and i was so clearly uncomfortable the first couple times my more physically affectionate friends hugged me that they just decided to respect my boundaries  
DAVE: which is cool and all but im  
DAVE: anyway i dont want to get weird when they DO touch me  
DAVE: because its at the point where its getting weird

You look up, trying to gauge his reaction. He’s frowning in sympathy. You hope it’s sympathy. Surely there wouldn’t be a viable business for this kind of thing if you were the only one who felt like this. It was that logic that allowed you to call them in the first place.

KARKAT: SOMETHING THAT CAN HELP IS HAVING A DISTRACTION.   
DAVE: like what  
KARKAT: WE COULD WATCH A MOVIE.  
KARKAT: OR I’M SEEING AN XBOX, WE COULD PLAY THAT.  
DAVE: and like  
DAVE: how  
DAVE: what would you do while we did that  
KARKAT: JUST SIT NEXT TO YOU AT FIRST. CLOSE ENOUGH FOR OUR LEGS TO TOUCH IF YOU’RE COMFORTABLE, OR WE CAN WORK UP TO THAT.  
KARKAT: I KNOW YOU’VE READ THE PAPERWORK AND SHIT, BUT I WANT TO REPEAT THAT I REALLY WON’T DO ANYTHING WITHOUT ASKING YOU IF YOU’RE OKAY WITH IT FIRST.  
DAVE: ok

You lick your lips and clear your throat before looking up from your phone. You look at him, as if you’re checking he’s still there, then get up and open the drawer in your TV unit. 

‘Okay,’ you say. ‘I’ve got a few local multiplayer games because I’ve got friends who’ll come over and play. Do you play normally? Like when you’re not dealing with flighty ponies with their underthings so far up their asses they're about to come out of their mouth.’

‘I—’ Karkat starts. You peek to watch him process your metaphor and visibly decide to move past it without comment. ‘Okay, can I assume you’re fine with swearing from me too?’

‘If anything, it’d feel more like you’re here to, you know, chill.’

‘Okay, cool. Then I’ll play anything. I’m a sweary loser.’ 

Well that settles it. You never know when someone’s gonna be good at a shooter or platformer or whatever, but _no one_ is good at _Overcooked._ You slide the disc into the Xbox and grab your controllers. You sit on the couch a bit closer to him than you would to anyone else, which is to say you don’t cramp yourself into the corner like a gremlin.

‘Want me to creep over to you gradually?’ he asks. ‘Or you could. Or we can just sit like this.’

‘You are so fucking patient,’ you say, idly flicking the joystick around as you wait for the game to load.

‘Kinda comes with the job,’ he says.

‘Right. Uh. Yeah, if you could do that. I don’t think I . . . can.’

‘Sure,’ he agrees easily. ‘I haven’t played this before, is it complicated?’

‘Nope,’ you say. ‘It introduces each thing slowly, so you’ll be fine.’

The first couple of levels go smoothly enough. You’re hyper-aware when he shifts in a pretty smooth way to get an inch or two closer. Like, he seemed to just be slightly standing to adjust his jeans and it was like he just happened to be _marginally_ closer to you. You think if you weren’t on edge, you wouldn’t have even registered it. You try and focus on the game instead of your positioning. Luckily, it’s a game that demands a lot of focus.

A little while later, after falling into water for the third time in about ten seconds, Karkat swears and pulls his feet onto the couch so that his legs are crossed. It brings his knee an inch away from touching your thigh. You genuinely don’t know if he did that as part of the thing, he still looks really focused on the screen. You fall into the water several times yourself as you attempt to find some composure.

Karkat was right, it’s better with a distraction. You’re not panicked about it now, even though you are a lot more aware of it happening than you think you should be. You think you’re basically okay with it. 

You move your leg across so that it’s barely touching his knee. Your heart beats in your chest like you’re making some kind of move on him. He turns to you and smiles, just for a second before he’s back to playing the game. You’re both wearing jeans, so it doesn’t quite register in the way touch does for you these days, which you’re grateful for. 

You restart the failed level and press your leg a little firmer to him. He smiles at you again. Look at all this positive reinforcement up in this bitch. You kind of wish he would pretend he didn’t notice, but maybe that would have made you feel bad in a different way.

You win the level. He holds up his hand to high five, big smile on his face. You only hesitate a second. 

After the next level, he makes no pretenses, he puts his legs back straight in front of him and then moves so your thighs are touching the whole length. This _does_ register as touch. You grit your teeth, hold the controller way too tight, don’t even attempt to move your character. His leg against yours is the only thing in the world. If this were any other situation, you would have flinched away and probably excused yourself to the bathroom to recover. But you can do this. 

You can’t do this. 

You drop the controller onto your lap and press the heels of your hands to your eyes. Your shades fall off, but you barely notice because you can feel hot tears spilling around the sides of your hand to run down your wrists. You hate this. You hate the feeling but you hate yourself for feeling it almost as much. You hate that you’re doing this in front of someone.

‘Can I put my hand on your shoulder?’ Karkat asks quietly. 

You nod without taking your hands away. He’s so gentle that you don’t jump. He squeezes your shoulder comfortingly and a sob escapes you.

‘Are you okay?’ he asks.

You feel awful pressure in your chest, your throat, in a way that reminds you of the shocked realisation as a teenager that had just been dumped that “broken-hearted” has some grounds in truth. You feel like your heart is breaking. You feel unspeakably lonely.

‘’M sorry,’ you choke out.

‘Hey, no, it’s okay,’ he says. He rubs your shoulder back and forth a little. ‘You’re not weird for this, you know? This is fine. I’m here.’ He rubs your shoulder again. You gasp in air, breathless from silent sobs that are convulsing through you. You feel when he takes the controllers carefully away and puts them on the coffee table.

‘Can I hug you?’ Karkat asks. 

You nod far too quickly. It feels like being hugged is the only thing that will help, like you need someone to hold the pieces of you together. The hand on your shoulder drags across your back like he knows how much you need to know where he is and he wraps you up. He gently guides your head so that your crown is resting on his neck, cheek on his collarbone, and leans back against the couch. He strokes your hair and it’s lightning striking through your head and down your spine, you are electrocuted, you are frozen by the current, every muscle contracted in painful ecstasy. He keeps stroking your hair, careful claws dragging against your scalp, and it doesn’t get any less intense. It’s so overwhelming that you stop sobbing, though tears still run down your face.

The hand that’s holding your shoulder around the front of you slowly moves down your arm and lifts your hand until it’s on his waist and you’re hugging him back. It’s shocking how limp your arm feels, and suddenly all that tension is gone from your body. As your weight falls entirely on him, his hand moves back to your shoulder and he squeezes. You swallow and stare sightlessly at the couch cushion next to him. You curl your fingers around his waist. Your mind is static, all your other sensations are drowned out by how occupied you are at his touch and there’s no room for conscious thought at all.

You blink vacantly in surprise when he starts purring. The vibration rumbles through your cheek and arms. You’ve never felt anything like it. It rolls across his breath like waves crashing on the shore, pulling back, then rushing forward again.

‘This is nice,’ he murmurs. It’s difficult to pull your brain into focus enough to understand. ‘You’re a nice shape to cuddle with.’

‘Thanks,’ you say brokenly. 

‘How does this feel, is anything too much?’

You cling a bit tighter at the vaguest suggestion that he might stop. Then you flush so hard with self consciousness that he can probably feel the heat radiating from your face.

‘Nah, this is good,’ you say, not as casually as you would have liked.

You don’t want to move. You want to be here for every second of the remaining time you’ve got from the four hour booking. You regret the time you wasted being flighty. So what if you thought you might cry? You hired him exactly so you wouldn’t feel bad about that, because you can’t initiate contact with your friends while you’re like this. They’d support you, you trust them, but you couldn’t stand them looking at you differently.

‘You’ve got other clients like me? Who get . . . like this, when you touch them?’

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Breaks my heart a little, but there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s this fucking society.’

‘Fuck society,’ you agree. ‘Stick it to the man.’

‘They’re not like this in other countries, not so afraid of touching. We make out like every brush of the fingers is sexual. _Everyone_ needs this.’

‘You really care about this,’ you say.

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I wish I didn’t have to charge for it. But, you know, fucking society. It’s my job.’

‘I don’t want to be racist,’ you say, which is a great start to a sentence.

‘Great start to a sentence,’ he says, sarcastic but in a gently amused way, not in a way that is gonna stop you from saying what might be racist.

‘I thought, like, you know, you’re a troll.’

‘I figured that one out fairly young.’

‘Right,’ you say, with the hint of a laugh. ‘It might be a stereotype, god, also a shitty way to start a sentence. I should just say what I fucking mean, I’m making such a fucking mess. Can’t even see the carpet, shit’s disgraceful.’

‘Dave,’ he says.

‘You’re not exactly known for being cuddly. Is that another “fucking society” thing?’

‘Yeah. _God,_ yeah. You should hear my ancestor go on about quadrants. Do you know them?’

‘Yeah. Was an auspice for like three weeks. Too much of a pushover, the most I ever saw them agree was when they dumped me.’

He snorts at that. His fingers are now playing with your hair more than combing through it, curling it around his fingers mostly.

‘Trolls like my ancestor escaped Alternia for exactly this reason, but no one but him seems to register that quadrants were an integral part of the empress’s strategy of isolating us. Like, okay, we start with the narrative that trolls are inherently violent. But living on Earth has proven that a huge part of that is being raised knowing that your neighbours could cull you at any moment for any reason. The ones who survive are the ones who know how to fight, completely without mercy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not claiming there aren’t violent trolls, but I think they’re raised to be violent. Fuck, if you’re hatched on Alternia, the first thing you do is fight other wigglers to the death as part of the trials.’

‘That’s fucked up.’

‘Super fucked up,’ he agrees. ‘And part of that _narrative_ is the way we’re supposed to hate every troll on sight. And the way that in order to feel fulfilled we have to have a kismesis. There are healthy kismesissitudes, but I don’t subscribe to the idea that everyone must have one. Or that everyone wants more than one so badly that they need intervention. Though, like, I’ve seen genuinely beautiful auspictism as well. I’m not saying chuck the wiggler out with the sopor, but that sopor is getting stale and not helping the wiggler at all.’

You really like the sound of his voice. You like the way his hand leaves your head for a second every now and then as he gestures, his whole body moving with it. You like that when he returns his hand to your hair he plunges it right in there with all five fingers, claws scratching against your scalp in a really nice way. 

‘So what, black romance needs to go?’

‘They all do,’ he says darkly. ‘The empress told us that we could have _one_ person to be gentle with, and that that gentleness was only to keep us from going into fucking frenzies. And the amount of trolls who are scandalised if you want to just hang out and talk. After sex, sure! Walking down the street with nowhere to be, just holding hands? Call your moirail, buddy. And you are expected to keep a distance from everyone else in case they think you’re coming on to them.’

‘I get the feeling that I can never ever say any of this to anyone,’ you say.

‘Yeah, don’t do that. People don’t like it when _I_ say it.’

You close your eyes and take a deep breath, feeling more relaxed with him now that you’ve got him preaching subversive messages at you. He smells good. Like soap. They asked you not to wear cologne, which you get. It’d be a lot to take in.

‘That’s why I do this. Or, it’s a big part.’

‘To cuck everyone’s moirails?’

He laughs properly at that, whole chest moving with it. It takes a couple seconds for his purrs to start back up again. 

‘No, to help people who think they can’t touch anyone like this. It’s not sexual, it’s not even romantic. It’s just caring. You’re allowed to care about and for people, you know?’

You bet his clients fall in love with him all the time. You practically fall in love with anyone who exchanges a sentence with you. But much as you kind of want to crawl inside his ribs and never leave, he’s right. This doesn’t feel romantic. It makes you feel sad that you never had a mom. Maybe she would have held you like this.

‘Hey, how’s your neck feeling?’ he asks.

You actually have to think about it, because all your feeling is devoted to where he’s touching you and absolutely zero of it is aware of what you’re doing. But now he mentions it . . .

‘Kinda stiff. It’s not bad though, I don’t want to stop.’

‘Like I’d give up cuddling you for any non-fire related reason,’ he snorts. ‘I just thought we could lie down.’

‘Axe murderer?’ you ask.

‘I’d just tell them to kindly fuck off. I’m very persuasive. And terrifying. They wouldn’t dare cross me.’

‘Okay,’ you laugh, because that’s so ridiculous it doesn’t deserve addressing. ‘Alligator?’

‘Same answer.’

You laugh again. 

‘Can we lie down?’ he asks.

‘Double rainbow?’

‘I’ll just see it later on Instagram.’

‘Okay, we can lie down,’ you say. You don’t move. You’re not going to until he makes you.

‘Want to spoon or face each other?’

‘Spoon,’ you say.

‘Big or little?’

You want to call big spoon. There’s not much that conforms to your ideas about masculinity about this, but you could do that. But when you fall asleep at night, you feel a phantom arm on your waist. You’ve tried putting a sandbag there to mimic the pressure, but it doesn’t work. Sometimes you can’t sleep for how badly you want there to be someone there. Sometimes you feel like you can’t just get up and go about your day when you wake up and you’re alone. The company’s website said they do overnight stays. You didn’t want to commit to something you might not like, but you want Karkat to hold you forever.

‘Little spoon,’ you say quietly.

‘Want to put a movie on?’

You grip his shirt again without meaning to. You don’t want to move unless you’re going to immediately transition into a different kind of cuddle.

‘I can reach the remote from here,’ he murmurs, stroking your hair with the palm of his hand.

‘Okay, yeah,’ you say. 

‘You choose, I’ll watch anything.’

‘What would you pick if it were your choice?’

‘Probably a romantic comedy from the 90s, you don’t want me choosing.’

You sit up and he puts both arms around your waist, head tucked against your back. Like he’s the clingy one. You put _Notting Hill_ on, because you can do a rom com if pressed. He smiles at you like you gave him the moon and the sun.

He puts two cushions under his head so that he can see, then rests his chin on your shoulder. He asks you if you mind talking during movies and when you tell him you can’t be shut up, he gives you a running commentary that almost charms you into staying quiet so you can hear him speak uninterrupted. His fingers trace patterns on the back of your hand. 

You cry when he first cuddles you to him, but it’s not the sobs from earlier and it stops a lot quicker. You thought he might not notice, but he does and when he asks if he can wipe away your tears, you let him. You feel almost unbearably cared for.

‘I’m just saying, and it’s not a criticism, that Hugh Grant is the same character in every single movie he has ever been in,’ you say, about halfway through the movie. 

‘How is that not a criticism??’ he demands. 

‘Because the character is a good one,’ you say. You catch his finger in your hand and squeeze. He nuzzles against you a little and you die and go to heaven. When you recover, you continue. ‘He’s an awkwardly charming guy, like you’re endeared with the hesitating way he speaks, and he’s been with a lot of women and you shouldn’t get sucked in, but then it turns out that he just hadn’t found the woman that would make him devote his entire life to her. Which movie of his am I describing, Karkat? Tell me one movie of his that doesn’t fit that description.’

 _‘The Gentlemen,’_ he answers immediately. ‘It came out a few years back. It also featured the one instance of Matthew McConaughey being an engaging actor.’

‘Well damn,’ you say. ‘Next time we can watch that, I’m down for losing yet another afternoon of my life to Matthew McConaughey. My best friend is in love with him, I’ve been coerced into watching _Failure to Launch_ roughly half a million times.’

Karkat makes a noise of disgust. You like the idea of a rom com connoisseur. 

‘I love his friends in this,’ Karkat says, a little while later. ‘Found family trope fucking gets me. Big surprise there, I know.’

‘No,’ you say, faking shock. ‘The guy who wishes he could volunteer to hug people who don’t have families to hug, _he_ likes watching people find intimate, non-romantic love?’

‘I also go to the caverns and hug the wigglers that haven’t been adopted yet,’ he sighs. ‘Well, I lie on the floor and they all crawl over me and fall asleep if I purr at them.’

‘Well that’s fuckin’ adorable,’ you say. 

_’You’re_ fucking adorable,’ he mutters defensively. You feel the compliment to your toes even though it isn’t even sincere.

When the movie’s over, he sits up against the arm of the couch with his legs open and you fit in front of him, back to his chest. He rests his chin on your shoulder again and leans his forehead into the side of your face. He listens to you talk about your movies, how you’re a far way from properly successful but you’re finally earning enough to barely wince at his cost. Enough to think you’ll book in another session pretty much immediately. He tells you he’d like that and you believe him.

He gives you a long hug at the door before he leaves, twenty minutes after his time was up. You watch him go down the hallway, and you couldn’t miss him more if he’d taken your lungs with him. Yeah. You’re booking another session. And you’re googling what the fuck you do if you’re in love with your professional cuddler.


	2. Ooh I don't know what to do / About this dream and you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karkat is so proud of how far Dave's come in the time he's been his cuddle therapist. He can keep those boundaries intact for the sake of their future.

You’ve barely finished knocking when Dave opens the door, and his expressionless facade lasts exactly as long as it takes to make sure it’s you. Then he’s grinning and pulling you inside with both hands on your forearm, already talking.

‘You’re not going to believe this. Okay, maybe you are, I don’t know, weirder shit has happened.’ 

You struggle to kick off your shoes as you’re being dragged towards the couch. He looks like he loves how ridiculous you look, so you scowl at him as you finally wriggle your left shoe off and drop onto the couch next to him. He takes off his shades and flicks them onto the coffee table. He picks up one of your hands in both of his and runs his thumbs over the back of it as he keeps talking.

‘So, Alternia has been around for-fucking-ever. Every idea that we’ve ever had on Earth, they had it first. They’re like _The Simpsons_ in that way.’

‘Sure,’ you say. ‘Hi, by the way.’

‘Hey,’ he says, excited smile transforming into something warm. He brings your hand to his lips and kisses it gently. Your heart melts a little. You’re so incredibly lucky to have this. Four months ago, during your first session with Dave, you never could have predicted that he’d be like this. Yeah, he still wears his shades to answer the door and yeah, he still hasn’t hugged his brother (or even bumped into his shoulder in a casually friendly way), but he gives his affection to you so easily now. And he looks _healthier._ Maybe it’s just that happiness suits him, but you swear his skin is clearer and his eyes are brighter. You think he’s even put on a bit of weight, in an undeniably good way.

And then he’s off again. ‘So, we’ve watched _Good Luck Chuck_ roughly forty million times?’ You snort and nod. ‘I found the troll version.’

Your jaw literally drops open. You can’t remember the words you should say to express gratitude or amazement. You’re too busy wondering if there’s a troll Dane Cook to go along with it, because troll Will Smith is fucking incredible and you’ll die if there’s a troll Dane Cook.

‘Wait, but Alternians don’t marry,’ you say. ‘That’s a pretty integral part of the story.’

‘Guess we have to watch it to find out how they did it different. You have to do the menu, I can’t read Alternian for shit.’

He thumbs the Xbox controller to wake the TV up, then passes it to you. You select the disc and are confronted with the title. You smile as you skim it. It’s definitely _Good Luck Chuck._

‘Oh my god skip the title,’ Dave says. ‘What is it with you and blurbs?’

‘Where did you even get this?’ you ask.

‘John’s brother is obsessed with movies, he loves literally every single movie he’s ever watched. My brother is trying to put the moves on him, so he went out of his way to get some Alternian shit to be sure Jake hadn’t seen them. Dirk’s now Jake’s “favourite buddy”. Anyway, we’re all trawling through the list to find the most ridiculous ones to watch together and I see this, which I dibsed so fuckin’ hard.’

‘But this is _Alternian,’_ you say. ‘In your _Xbox.’_

‘No, I know. Dirk went black market about it, invented a device that adapts moviegrubs to m4v files, made subtitles for them, copied them onto disc and lovingly created faux DVD covers for some cheesy action movies and he’s _still_ somehow sitting in the friend zone.’

‘Has he considered telling Jake how he feels,’ you say flatly, knowing the answer already.

Dave laughs. Then he realises you’re serious and looks surprised. Then he laughs again, harder. You roll your eyes and sigh, as obvious on both those counts as you can be without damaging yourself. Like, you feel your eyes strain. When you look back at him, he’s shaking his head, the remnants of laughter spilling out of his mouth like they got caught in the packaging and it’s not quite empty.

‘You say that Dirk is even less communicative than you are—’ (‘He is,’ Dave says) ‘—so isn’t it reasonable that Jake genuinely doesn’t know if Dirk is interested and is hedging his bets rather than putting himself out there for the pinnacle of toxic masculinity?’

‘That’s my other brother,’ Dave says.

‘Does Jake even know that Dirk likes men?’

‘I think he just likes _Jake,’_ Dave says, contemplatively. ‘Okay, no, you’ve got a point. But I’m not suggesting that to him, he’ll twist my nips off.’

You believe him. He’s still cagey about how he grew up, but he’s hinted at enough for you to tread fucking lightly. You snort with amusement as if you aren’t hypersensitive to his mood and what you’re discussing and doing at every moment. Then you change the subject, in a way that means he _shouldn’t_ feel like you’re stepping around a minefield.

‘How are we watching this?’ you ask, ready to click play once you’re arranged but unwilling to miss even a second of this gift.

‘Dogg, we _perfected_ it last month, do you even need to ask?’

That’s the great thing about this. You don’t really need to ask anymore. You still do, because you know that he’s never practiced asking for what he wants or even having boundaries. You’re fucking receptive to everyone’s moods, not just his, you know when someone is uncomfortable even when they’re pretty good at faking. You think that the biggest sign of trust you’ve gotten from Dave hasn’t been what he’s allowed you to do, it’s been the two times he’s quietly asked you to stop or change what you’re doing.

‘Maybe I’m just hinting that you need to get your flat ass into position,’ you say, deadpan as you can be.

‘My ass is perfect,’ he says as he lies down. ‘Last week I got a letter asking for me to pretty please let some art students sculpt it, because they don’t want to drive all the way downtown when they need inspiration for their next project. I said damn, okay, but it’ll cost you. They gave me five billion bucks and now I’m going to literally purchase you. You work on geisha rules, right? And _Memoirs of a Geisha_ is a reliable resource on those rules, right?’

‘No to both of those,’ you say, trying hard not to smile. He doesn’t need your encouragement on this front, you’re paid to cuddle him, not to put up with this shit. He gets that for free. ‘Could you make this even fractionally easier for me? I’m not starting the movie until we’re arranged, this is the most important thing I’ll ever experience.’

Dave scooches slightly and lifts his arm up. You lie on your side, cushion your cheek on his chest and thread your legs through his so that your thighs are against his butt and his legs are relaxed over the top of yours. His arm falls around your shoulders and he gently squeezes you. You press play and snuggle in better as he puts the controller out of the way.

It takes ten minutes before you are brutally reminded that Earth is nothing like Alternia. Every troll that Chuck sleeps with isn’t doomed to get married, they’re doomed to be horrifically killed, with every gory detail displayed. And your ancestor once let it slip that the deaths in Alternian movies are _not_ special effects. The result is a movie that transitions from graphic sex scenes to graphic death scenes, interspersed with dialogue that often references things that you don’t remotely understand. Maybe they were mistranslated or maybe you don’t have the cultural context for them.

Dave asks if you want to keep watching after the second decapitation. You say you do, because it was a fucking nice present and you’ve got a strong stomach. You subtly bring your hand up so that you can fan out your fingers in front of your eyes during the violent scenes, kind of wishing you could cover your ears just a bit. Dave starts making up his own explanations for the weird subtitles in an obvious effort to distract you, which is when you realise that you’re flinching way too obviously. Then he starts covering your eyes for you when he anticipates blood, and judging from the sounds you think he’s got an uncanny instinct for it. Eventually you give up and press your face into his neck and cover your exposed ear.

‘Okay, that’s it, I’m turning it off,’ he says. 

‘No!’ you protest. 

‘Karkat, you’re not even watching.’

‘Describe it to me,’ you demand. 

‘Oh my god,’ he says under his breath. ‘Okay, fine, let’s do this. _Good Luck Chuck,_ Alternia edition feat. Dave Strider. The dream movie. I’m gonna rip this off so bad for the next SBaHJ.’

You take your hand from your ear to prod him and immediately regret it. He strains to reach the remote and turns the volume way down. You relax a bit and put your hand back over his heart. 

‘Okay, Troll Chuck is talking to his moirail. Moirail is like “get you a big tiddy clown matesprit” and Chuck’s like “what’s your obsession with tits and clowns” and okay, what the fuck, Dirk has to be fucking with us with these subtitles. No, don’t look, I got this. He says “bro, tiddies are the bee’s fuckin’ knees, let me objectify literally everyone on this dumbfuck planet by ranking the hemospectrum by boobage quality.” and now he’s saying a lot of things about the empress, it’s like okay, yeah, I’m sure her melons are juicy as shit but at some point you gotta stop weighing them and just make the goddamn purchase. Karkat, he’s still talking about the empress, how hot even is she?’

‘She’s got big-ass tiddies, Dave,’ you say. ‘She sends out racy calendars of herself, she’s not even remotely shy.’

‘Okay he’s finally stopped deep-throating the empress’s high heels. I don’t get it, does he want to get flushed with Chuck or is he just really filthy? Oh wait, Chuck’s getting pissed, I’ve seen enough troll shit to know what’s coming—oh _damn!_ I was so wrong, I thought moirail was gonna pap him down but nope! Chuck just ripped that fucker’s arm off! Oh my god, now he’s beating the guy over the head with his arm, the guy just looks kind of fed up about it? What a shithouse moirail!’

‘Trolls are pretty durable,’ you say.

‘Oh hey, in the Earth version this’d be when Chuck goes and has sex with the fat chick, but it’s a rust-blood dude that’s like stick thin. I think Chuck’s gonna kill him if he goes on top. That’d be a very immediate way for the curse to come true. Hey, Chuck, how about you maybe keep that python in its cage for five fuckin’ minutes instead of all this.’

‘I say that every time we watch the Earth version,’ you protest. ‘Double standards! That is so fucking racist!’

‘Chicks were getting married in the Earth version, they _liked_ the consequences of banging him.’

Dave narrates his way through the rest of the movie, sticking close to what you think is probably happening at first and then making up his own plot that involves a complicated legal scandal because of all the death Chuck has been involved in, even though he’s indigo and basically above the law. He doesn’t let you look, so you know it hasn’t suddenly decided to get PG-13, and it’s nice, being cradled to his neck and told a bizarre story in his low voice. 

He orders in pizza and you warn him of the dangers of scurvy when he starts talking about how he doesn’t think there are even tomatoes involved in the sauce from this place. He tells you about Jade’s latest science experiment, then coaxes you into telling him about the book you’re reading while you play video games. Eventually, it’s bedtime.

This is only the second overnight you’ve done with Dave, though you have napped with him a couple times in regular ones. He’s a light sleeper and he wakes you up every time you move in your sleep with the way he wakes up, almost violent in his quickness and sometimes involving him literally getting out of bed before he realises it’s just you. You’re resigned to a night of poor sleep, but your sleeping habits are kind of shit anyway so it doesn’t bother you. 

You both climb into his bed, face to face as you continue your conversation about a robot’s right to kill people that he started while you were trying to brush your teeth. You hold his foot between both of yours and trace patterns into his arm. 

And then, just as you think you’ve made a particularly good point, he leans in and kisses you gently on the lips. 

Your hand stills on his arm. It takes you a moment to process what’s happening, then another to remember that it’s not allowed, _only just_ too late to stop yourself from making a tiny move towards kissing him back. You stop yourself and keep still, allowing the kiss passively because you can’t shove him away when he’s not _actually_ forcing himself on you. When he pulls back, you put a couple more inches of distance between you.

‘Shit, sorry,’ he says, voice pained. ‘God, that was just the skeeviest thing, wasn’t it, I just totally fucking ruined things, I am so sorry, man.’

‘It’s not allowed,’ you say quietly.

‘I know,’ he says, hurriedly. ‘I know, I totally know, I read the contract and everything before I signed it, I know what you’re doing here, it’s _great_ what you’re doing here, I’m such a fucking idiot. For real, you’re helping me do the platonic touch thing, I don’t know where that came from. I mean, I do, I—but it’s not like, I’m under control. Shit, maybe I think of the bed as being a romantic space and my brain just wasn’t on, I swear I can respect the _shit_ out of your boundaries.’

‘It’s okay,’ you say. You put your hand on his arm again and squeeze to get him to calm down. ‘It happens, it’s not a big deal. It’s just not allowed.’

‘Sorry,’ he says again.

‘Do you need a break? Do you need me to leave?’

‘Do you _not_ need to leave?’ he asks.

‘Not if you’re going to be cool about it,’ you say. ‘We can just move past it.’

You feel his bicep relax under your hand. 

‘Swear to god, I’m not the kind of asshole grabbing a waiter’s ass because she’s nice to me,’ he mumbles.

‘I know,’ you say.

You inch forward again and he rolls over so you can spoon him. You ask him what he’s doing for the rest of the weekend and he runs with your almost-awkward change of subject. It makes it comfortable enough for you to go to sleep, anyway. He holds your hand to his chest as if keeping you close. 

You feel guilty for the way you wish you were allowed to kiss him. You’ve helped him so much—he’s exactly the kind of person you do this for. He _needed_ someone to help him be okay with touch, to make small steps towards healing the gaps where he didn’t get the affection he needed. He needed for sex to be irrelevant, for it to be the kind of love that doesn’t depend on “getting something out of it”. And he still needs all of that.

You just really wish you were allowed to kiss him.

When you both wake up in the morning, he insists you take first shower as he lies on his back and plays a game on his phone. He did that last time too, so you feel like everything is probably okay. 

You make coffee while you wait for him to be done, then scroll through Twitter instead of allowing yourself to fret like a little old lady. He’s fidgeting with his shades when he comes to the kitchen. Your stomach sinks and you wonder if maybe you should have let yourself fret after all. He doesn’t put them on, but you still feel almost sick that he’s holding them.

‘So,’ he says. ‘Christ, I’m not coming to tell you that your barkbeast died, could you . . .’

You try and arrange your face into something a little less tragic. He breathes out half a laugh and sits down at the table next to you. Your knees aren’t even touching.

‘I kind of love you?’ he says. ‘Which, obviously, not ideal.’

‘Um,’ you say, super intelligently.

‘I thought I could just, you know, deal with it. I didn’t think, like, okay, I was tired and that made me stupid, I forgot why the boundaries were there and I don’t want to do it again. But I also—fuck.’ He takes a big sip of coffee and clears his throat. You don’t know what to say in the gap between his words, so you just stay silent. ‘The genie’s too thicc to get back into the bottle. I’d love to try, but it’s kinda amazing that it managed to squeeze its fat ass out of the damn spout and now things have just gotten way worse, furry artist worse.’

‘What are you saying?’ you ask.

‘I can’t be your client anymore. And I know I can’t be your boyfriend, so I guess that’s it.’

You look at him with tragically unprofessional regret. You don’t want to stop seeing him. You don’t want to stop seeing him for _you,_ never mind how much you know you’ve helped him. 

‘It’s because you love me for looking after you,’ you say.

‘You don’t need to explain, man, I get why we can’t be together.’

‘It’s . . .’

You cover your face with your hands, which is pretty fucking hypocritical considering how little you wanted him to hide behind his shades. 

‘It’s not impossible,’ you say, voice muffled by your hands.

He’s silent, absolutely silent, so you look up. He’s wearing a look of naked shock. 

‘What?’ he asks.

‘It’s, I don’t know if it’s worth the effort. But if we didn’t see each other, in any capacity, for six months. Then it’d be cool.’

Dave doesn’t look put off by the daunting amount of time. He _should,_ you've only known each other _four_ months, you could have forgotten about each other by then. He just looks hopeful. It’s kind of contagious.

‘You’d want to?’ he asks.

‘Maybe,’ you say, awkwardly. ‘I mean, I’d try it, if you wanted. It’s a lot though, I wouldn’t expect . . . Like, you could meet someone, you’re probably just feeling this way because of, you know, the circumstances, that’s why we have to wait six months. But yeah, I’d. I’d do it.’

‘Or you could meet someone,’ he says.

‘Yeah, or that,’ you say. 

‘Could we talk?’ he asks.

‘I can’t remember the rules,’ you groan. You remember your coffee and drink it while you’re wracking your memory. ‘I’m going to have to ask. Maybe I have paperwork. We’ve got to be able to talk, probably. Maybe it’s limited, I don’t know.’

Dave reaches out, hesitates, then brushes the back of your hand with his fingertips. 

‘I’d like to,’ he says. ‘I’m playing it so cool right now you have no idea, I’m jumping up and down on the inside.’

You take his hand, just as tentative as he was when he reached out. You’ve held hands countless times, but now it feels as if you’re breaking the rules. Maybe you are, because you haven’t asserted control over the situation and you haven’t told him this is non-sexual, non-romantic. The look he’s giving you is unguardedly adoring, and a small part of you is so _proud_ that he’s able to look like that, be seen like that. You can feel that your face is almost concerned, because that’s what your mix of feelings comes out as, apparently. 

‘I should go,’ you say. ‘I can’t—I don’t think we’d think of it the same and I shouldn’t just hang around.’

‘You’ll text? Either way?’

‘Yeah,’ you say. 

You stand up and move around the apartment getting all your shit together. You’re still comfortable here. You’re trying not to drag this out, but it’s hard when you don’t want to leave.

Finally, you’re at the door, on the inside where you can say goodbye without Dave’s defences up. You know you shouldn’t, but you hold your arms out for a hug. The way Dave folds himself into you makes you feel so warm, so fond, that any notion of it being a bad idea leaves you. It lasts a while, but most of your hugs do. 

As you pull back, some instinct has you moving slower. His hand drags across your lower back, barely releasing you. Your faces touch. You feel his nose on your cheek and you turn into him without knowing you’re doing it. It’s inevitable when your lips meet, it’s perfect when he puts his hand on your neck just under your jaw, it’s _so hard_ to step back.

‘For the road,’ he says, smiling wryly. 

You feel slack-jawed, as if he punched you instead of kissing you. You return his smile as if half-asleep, then duck your head with embarrassment as he lets you out the door. Halfway down the hallway, you look back. He’s still leaning in the doorway watching after you. You feel the effect even though part of you laments the fact that his shades are on, protection against the barest risk that a neighbour will see him.


	3. Is it just part of the process / Jesus Christ, it hurts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the tragic backstory behind a non-Sburb AU is hinted at and emotional intimacy is attempted.

‘So, how are you?’ Rose says, casually crossing one leg over the other and leaning into her palm, elbow propped up on the arm of the chair. She has a look like she’s expecting gossip, which is how you know she’s worried. You tried to be normal in your message, but you told her you’d rather talk about things in person, which is never a message anyone wants to receive.

‘Been better,’ you say, shrugging a shoulder.

‘Ah,’ Rose says. She straightens, still looking calm and with a pleasantly sympathetic and very false smile on, like a hostess explaining that dinner will be late. ‘I’ll make tea.’

You let her, because you know you’ve rattled her. She usually has to pull every emotion out of you over the course of hours and many, many words, with you still insisting you’re fine the whole time. Actually, it’s more like you talk a lot of shit and then _she_ tells you how you’re feeling. This is part of the problem.

She doesn’t talk or even look up as the kettle boils. She wipes down your clean benches instead. Keeping herself busy so that she doesn’t have to tackle you with her hands empty. See, you’ve explained this to Karkat. You know she loves you. She just doesn’t ever say it or touch you.

‘There,’ she says, putting the mug in front of you. She sits back in her chair and holds her own mug at her knees, leaning forward attentively. ‘Now. You’ve been better.’

‘Sure,’ you say, ‘I’ve had some pretty great times. Remember a couple of years ago when Jade tricked us all into going to a waterpark? That was dope. Or, a couple months ago when we had that ironic picnic? There’s been times in my life where I’ve been having pretty rad sex on the reg. My standards for better are pretty high.’

‘Okay . . .’ Rose says.

For once, she seems to be struggling with prompting you to say whatever’s on your mind. The tension is making you anxious and you fucking decided you were doing this, you’re doing it.

‘I fired my cuddle therapist,’ you say.

Rose leans back in her chair. She looks mildly surprised. You can’t remember if you’ve ever seen her look surprised before; she tends to either know everything that’s coming or pretends that she does. That time at the waterpark, she had you and John thinking that she was in on it for half the day, and that she’d figured it out for the other half. Now you’re pretty sure she didn’t know, but only _pretty_ sure.

‘Give me a moment,’ she says.

‘Take your time,’ you say.

You watch her unpack your statement. That doesn’t take her that long, she can absorb information quickly. What she needs the moment for is figuring out how she’s going to approach responding. And she’s probably remembering that she doesn’t tease you until you run away anymore. 

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ she says. 

‘He’s not dead,’ you say.

‘It’s still a loss.’

‘Thanks.’

There’s another pause. She doesn’t usually go into conversations without a rehearsal.

‘You actually look pretty good,’ she says. ‘Healthy, anyway.’

‘Thanks.’

God, this is so fucking awkward.

‘How long had you been seeing him?’

‘Four months,’ you say.

‘Shit,’ she says.

‘Yeah.’

‘And why did you fire him?’

‘’Cause I fell in love with him.’

She pauses.

‘Another moment, please.’

You nod. She sips her tea and you remember your own. She looks behind you at the framed poster for your first movie. She’s _definitely_ making the effort not to torture you this time.

‘I suppose, with the intimacy of such a profession, that this is a risk they expect?’

‘Yup.’

‘Dave, you have to help me out here. Tell me the full story.’

You should have done this part over text. Yeah, you needed to get her over here and yeah, the idea of explicitly inviting her over to try and connect with her in a more open way than usual was way too intimidating, but you could have done this over text. You remember the way Karkat let you text him sometimes when it was too hard to speak and wonder if Rose’d be up for that. She’d probably prefer it. You think it’s probably a crutch you shouldn’t use.

‘I was pretty fuckin’ touch-starved,’ you tell her. ‘I mean, I don’t think I’m fixed, I _really_ don’t think that, but it was bad.’

You stumble, because you need her to know that it wasn’t just a whim, that you needed it, but you don’t want her to know that you were in such a bad place or that you went to a stranger instead of her or your other friends.

‘What does “bad” mean?’ she prompts gently.

You suck in a deep breath and release it. 

‘I was getting,’ you wave the hand not holding your tea around vaguely, ‘emotional, when people touched me. Because I wanted to be touched so bad. And I didn’t want to get emotional, so I avoided touching people, which made it worse.’

‘And when you say “touching”. . .’ she says.

‘Not a sex thing,’ you say. She nods. ‘I’d have told you if it was a sex thing,’ you say. She rolls her eyes and smiles at you. ‘It was just, like, intense loneliness. You know?’

Her sympathetic smile slips. She always looks so sad when she’s not smiling or visibly thinking. She smiles when she’s walking down the street on her own. She looks down at her tea, then back up at you. She does a quick nod and looks back down again. You really, _really_ wish she didn’t know. You watch her swallow, watch the even rise and fall of her shoulders with her breath. You watch her fix herself up, then lift her head, smiling again. It’s a softer smile than her usual all-knowing one.

‘I wish _you_ didn’t know,’ she says. 

You let out a little “ha” that almost constitutes a laugh. 

‘So, you hired someone to address that need?’ she says.

You nod and drag a hand through your hair. You kind of want to tell her everything, but in a much more real way you want to keep every single one of your sincere feelings private. You have no idea how you have managed to keep this a secret so far.

‘His name’s Karkat, he’s a troll, supes cuddly,’ you say. 

‘One would hope so,’ she says. 

‘I thought it might not work?’ you say. ‘Like, what if it didn’t click because I was paying him to be there, that could’ve made the loneliness worse, right?’ She nods thoughtfully. ‘But nope, it was good.’

‘How did it work?’ she asks. ‘I can’t imagine you greeting him at the door with a hug.’

‘Nah,’ you agree. ‘I was a bigger disaster than the global financial crisis. I was a bigger disaster than Hurricane Katrina. I was a bigger disaster than fuckin’ COVID.’

‘Not a small disaster then,’ she says mildly. ‘One that would be above the paygrade of the average citizen.’

‘Exactly,’ you say. You like it when she finds meaning in your words that you didn’t mean to put there. ‘He’s good at his job though. Five stars. I was practically roosting on the ceiling fan to try and get as far away from him as possible, you know, because I like to make people work to deliver the goods and services I have requested from them—’

‘Naturally.’

‘And he starts texting me ‘cause he knew it’d be easier than talking, then we played video games together, then I blew up like Hiroshima because he barely touched me.’

‘I’m surprised you did this with a stranger.’

‘C’mon, you think I could, like, have emotions in front of you?’

‘You seem to be attempting it now.’

You pull your lips inward awkwardly and nod. She tucks her hair behind her ear even though her headband is specifically designed for that purpose. She hasn’t straightened her hair. She came over immediately after getting your message without straightening her hair.

‘So, he’s not allowed to date a current client,’ you say.

‘Obviously,’ Rose scoffs. ‘You don’t buy what you can get for free.’

‘But he can date me if we wait six months.’

This earns you a second surprised look. It involves the barest raising of her eyebrows and a softening of her mouth. It looks strange on her face.

‘Well,’ she says. ‘That’s nice.’

You snort.

‘Isn’t it?’ she demands.

‘No, yeah, it is.’

‘So why am I commiserating with you!’

‘Because!’ you say, which was far too much feeling to put into the word. You tend to match her. You regulate your voice back to its usual degree of reasonableness. That is to say, barely containing emotion. ‘The reason they do the time thing is so that you can get some fucking distance. I can’t just stay dependant on him and wait out the six months like a cactus in an inattentive Californian’s garden waiting for the fucking rain. I need to, you know, irrigate. Or whatever.’

Rose frowns. She looks down at her tea, which seems to remind her that she’s holding an empty mug. She puts it on the coffee table and laces her fingers together.

‘Are you asking me to cuddle you?’ she says quietly.

‘No,’ you say defensively.

‘Because I’m not very good at it,’ she says. 

‘I know,’ you say, still defensive.

‘I _will,_ if that’s what you need,’ she says. ‘Hell, I will if that’s what you want.’

‘Rose, we’d be so fucking uncomfortable.’

Her eyes widen and she nods slowly in emphatic agreement.

‘Still, though,’ she says. 

You flop back against the couch and let your head fall so you’re staring at the ceiling. You don’t know why you’re trying to talk her out of the thing you explicitly invited her over to ask for. It’s not like you could be fearing her rejection, she’s literally saying she’ll do it! She’s not trying to trap you. She never would have done that, not even when she thought she got points when she made the other kids cry with just her words. She’s kind, at her core. She’s just got a spiky exterior that matches your heavily shielded one, both inheritances from your upbringings.

‘I’m going to sit next to you,’ she declares.

She does not move. You move your head to the side to look at her.

‘Well, I’m not about to rush into it like a bull out of the gates,’ she says. ‘The cowboy will cling to my back if I move exactly as expected and I fully intend to trample them beneath my hooves.’ She pauses. ‘Is there a gender neutral form of cowboy?’

‘I don’t fuckin’ know.’

‘There _should_ be.’

‘I can’t imagine the Texas Rodeo Association getting up on the stage and saying, “Howdy cowboys, cowgirls, and cowpeeps”, can you?’

‘“Cowpeeps” is ridiculous,’ she says. She stands, smooths down her skirt, and sits on the couch next to you, not remotely near enough to touch. ‘Cowfolk?’ she suggests.

‘It’s probably just “wrangler” or some shit,’ you say. 

‘You said “howdy” before,’ she points out. ‘You said it in a very stupid way.’

‘I said it with my voice,’ you mutter.

‘You came over all southern,’ she says. 

‘Howdy,’ you say.

‘Howdy,’ she says. 

You drop your arm to the couch so that your hand is face up on the cushion between the two of you. You wiggle your fingers. Rose looks at them as if they’re going to shlorp her into another dimension if she touches them. Then she delicately places her hand in yours and stares forward.

‘They’d probably just say “y’all”, if they did want to be inclusive,’ she says, stiffly. 

‘Howdy, y’all,’ you drawl.

‘Howdy, y’all,’ she says. She sits up a little straighter and swings her free arm like a pirate. ‘Howdy, y’all!’ She drops back to the couch. ‘No, I don’t have whatever the cowthem version of street cred is.’

‘I can’t even begin to process what you just did,’ you say flatly. ‘Not even gonna bother.’

‘This isn’t so bad,’ she says, apparently not bothering to pretend it isn’t happening anymore. ‘I once dreamed we held hands as the universe ended.’

‘Gay,’ you say, which isn’t accurate in literally any way.

‘2009 called, they want their kneejerk response back.’

‘Yeah? That’s funny, I’ve got 1995 on the other line and they told me they want their joke back.’

She snorts. Her fingers twitch slightly in yours. 

‘We don’t have to do this,’ you say, tone carefully casual.

‘No, I’m getting into it. This is fine.’

You lean forward to get the remote and her fingers tighten, holding your hand to hers. When she sees that you’re not leaving, she relaxes again.

‘What are you doing?’ she asks.

‘Amazing as your hand-holding conversation is, sometimes a distraction is better.’

‘I’m doing well for a novice,’ she says. ‘I’m in with a chance at the title. Lalonde takes the hand, she holds the hand, and . . .’ 

Rose builds the tension by not finishing her sentence at all. You wait, but she seems content to just sit on the couch now. 

‘I’m—’

‘Goal!’ Rose calls out over the top of you.

‘You’re so fucking annoying, you know that?’ you say.

‘It is my privilege. What are you?’

‘I’m gonna put a movie on. I _was_ going to ask you what you wanted to watch, but you—’

‘Labyrinth.’

You really want to not do as she says. But she’s called your bluff by suggesting a classic in your family. Who could possibly say no to a movie where David Bowie’s junk is on display through his lycra every single time he’s in a shot?

You put it on. Then you shuffle closer to Rose and put your joined hands on your knee. She pats your hand awkwardly and resumes holding it.

‘Would you like to attempt some emotional vulnerability as well as this?’ she says.

‘No,’ you say, immediately.

‘It’s just that we know this movie by heart and I kind of hate the beginning where she’s all bratty.’

‘You don’t have tolerance for feelings,’ you say, which is both related to her incorrect movie opinions and also about the situation.

‘I don’t mind _your_ feelings,’ she says. 

You don’t think that’s true. But she didn’t straighten her hair. The thing is, you believe that she would kill for you and probably die for you. You just don’t think she could deal if you, like, cried in front of her. 

‘Karkat thinks I should find support in my existing network,’ you say, like you’re reading from an Ikea manual. Wait, those don’t have words. Lego manual. Nope. A manual, anyway.

‘Jade should have been your first choice,’ she says. ‘Or was she? Not that I mind losing, it’s just that I really fucking hate losing.’

‘You’re my first choice,’ you mumble, barely audibly.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Fuck off, you know I came to you first,’ you say. ‘First thing Jade or John’d do is call you, wanting to know what a cuddle therapist even is. Wouldn’t even get out of the building before whipping out their cell like an over-eager 40 year-old with their dick at their first swingers party.’

Rose’s fingers flex in yours, but she doesn’t pull away. You peek at her and see that she’s not at all amused with your bullshit. 

‘It’s not just them,’ you say. ‘Gonna try a manly embrace on Dirk some time.’

‘Can I be there?’ Rose asks, immediately. ‘To support you,’ she lies.

You shrug. That’d sap a lot of unwanted intimacy out of the gesture. With Rose, you’ll take the privacy because you knew she’d want to know why and you knew that if she was put into the position of looking like she doesn’t know how to do physical contact in front of people that she’d lash out so that she was back in control and hell, you knew that you were going to find this embarrassing as hell and it’s best left unseen. But Dirk won’t want to ask shit, he’ll want to pat you awkwardly on the back twice and pretend to pretend it never happened, while really trying to figure you out in his head for six years until he reaches a conclusion or he gives in and asks Rose. So, yeah, letting Rose be there and having her immediately draw your attention away with something witty, it’s probably a good idea. Even if she’s not doing it altruistically. 

‘You know, Mom would jump at the chance to hug you. She’d probably pull you onto her lap and never let you go.’

‘Yeah,’ you laugh. 

You’re not doing that. She knows you’re not doing that. Your generation of your fucked up family has built something on top of crumbling foundations, ones that you pretend are whole when you meet up for Passover or whatever holiday Mom remembers to call you all home for. If it weren’t for the fact that Bro doesn’t hesitate whenever she puts out the invitation, you probably wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with the Lalondes. Or the Striders, for that matter. 

You might hate how emotional and vulnerable you’re feeling now while holding Rose’s hand, but Mom’s love eviscerates you. Hiding in one of the million guest rooms’ cupboards and sobbing violently and silently to recover from her momness at fifteen was about when you realised you couldn’t handle love like that. Too intense, too rare, too often accompanied with the smell of vodka battling her too-floral perfume.

‘You could go without the rest of the Striders,’ she says, quietly. You realise that she’s not being ironic and keep your eyes firmly forward. Shit’s embarrassing enough. ‘Without the rest of the Lalondes, even. She can keep a secret better than anyone.’

‘Probably because she forgets it,’ you say, trying to laugh again but discomfited by Rose taking her mom’s side for the first time in the history of forever.

‘You don’t have to. But it might help both of you.’

You look now, because you can’t help it. She looks deadly serious, the way she looked when she told you she would be moving out on her 18th birthday to escape exactly the kind of bullshit you think you’re pretty justified in avoiding. 

‘How?’ you ask.

‘You could stand to internalise the fact that your mother loves you, regardless of her shitty actions. She . . . could stand to have one less reason to drink. It all comes down to feeling she can’t change her shitty actions and she feels she has lost you irretrievably.’

‘No pressure,’ you mutter.

‘You’re not going to change each other. But you could both gain a small amount of peace.’

‘You got peace on that front?’ you ask. It comes out defensive.

‘Some,’ she says. 

You ignore the movie, despite the fact that the Muppets are now on and they’re fucking awesome (you’ve swung back and forth on this position pretty dramatically over the years, but the big fluffy ones in this bear no resemblance to sex toys, probably, so they’re cool). You add another hand to the equation and start dragging your thumbs along her metacarpals. She looks at her hand as though you’re skinning it, but then back up at you as if she’s decided to accept this fate. You’re both so fucking messed up.

‘It was a couple of years ago and I know she remembers,’ she says. 

Suddenly she looks up at the ceiling and you’re horrified to see tears welling up in her eyes. You have never, _ever_ seen Rose cry, not even when she twisted the shit out of her ankle wildly overestimating her ability to pick up skateboarding visually.

‘Hey,’ you say. ‘Uh, hold on.’

You drop her hand and she brings her two forefingers to the bottom of her eyes as she blinks rapidly.

‘I’m fine,’ she says, in a very calm voice.

You pull out your phone and bring up your conversation with her.

DAVE: is this better

She pulls out her own phone, looking quizzically at you. Her finger has a spiky, wet line of eyeliner along it. Her makeup still looks perfect and her eyes are just slightly shinier than usual, you don’t think you could tell if you hadn’t seen it happen.

ROSE: This is astonishingly helpful in the pursuit of encouraging emotional intimacy between us.  
ROSE: It’s almost over-attentive, like a waiter who wants to clear our issues away while we’re still chewing.   
DAVE: but its better right

She looks up at you, gives you a judgemental look, then back at her phone.

ROSE: Yes.

She scoots away to the other side of the couch, which makes you snort. Then she lifts her feet onto the cushion between the two of you.

ROSE: Play footsie with me.  
DAVE: jesus christ

‘Jesus Christ,’ you say, under your breath. But you copy her pose and rest your socked feet on top of hers, thoroughly weirded out.

DAVE: you better not be getting off on this  
DAVE: that would be so like you  
DAVE: biding your time all our fucking lives like oh yeah ill dredge this siblinghood from the doomed lakes of hades just so that one day when hes at his lowest ever point hell touch my feet with his feet  
DAVE: im onto you  
DAVE: bet you wish my feet were 100 times as smelly  
DAVE: well tough titties im not going outside just to walk in dog shit for your depraved kinks  
ROSE: I couldn’t have you reading my messages.  
DAVE: you are literally the most ridiculous motherfucker to have ever worked this bitch of an earth  
ROSE: I’m not the one whose mind jumped to incest because of some innocent foot-shenanigans. 

You need a refund on your sister. When you peek up, you’re glad to see that she’s at least smiling too.

DAVE: so what happened with you and mom and why didnt you tell me  
ROSE: You remember that I slipped into drinking myself before it became obvious that a Lalonde does not do so casually?

You choose to interpret that as a rhetorical question. Of course you fucking remember.

ROSE: It provided some insight, but also raised more questions.   
ROSE: I was able to quit, I was 19 and knew everything there was to know, surely I could cure Mom of her own addiction and we could be healed together  
DAVE: rose...  
ROSE: Of course I wasn’t quite that naive. But it was close.  
ROSE: We talked for hours, for literally an entire night.   
ROSE: She was shaking with withdrawal by the end.  
ROSE: Did you know that alcohol is the only drug whose withdrawal can be deadly?  
DAVE: shit

You curl your toes into the top of her foot like you might squeeze her hand. It’s weird. You don’t think it’s very reassuring. 

ROSE: She was addicted before I was born, probably before Bro was born.   
ROSE: She’s so sensitive to failure, it’s physically agonising to her, and alcohol dims that.  
ROSE: So, she’d fuck up, as mothers do sometimes, and to avoid throwing up and being completely unable to fix her mistake, she’d drink and put off the freak-out until after she’d dealt with the problem, a habit she’d developed at work. Like grounding.  
DAVE: that is so completely fucked  
ROSE: I know.  
ROSE: And learning that, it was very hard to then criticise her. Knowing it would torture her.  
ROSE: But I did.  
ROSE: Without the sarcasm and the hatred, just telling her honestly how it had felt to not trust her love.  
ROSE: To feel like I was lower in her priorities than alcohol.  
ROSE: To often feel like I was an obligation that she could only tolerate if she drank.

She pauses. You watch her perform the same ritual where she collects her tears on her forefingers before they fall. Then her middle fingers, because apparently she’s reached capacity. You lean forward and hand her the box of tissues that lives on your coffee table. She makes a little finger glove with her pointer finger and hoovers up those tears like a hungry, hungry hippo. Even though she’s not really crying, she has to be hating this.

DAVE: we dont have to talk about this  
DAVE: not now or not ever  
DAVE: this isnt one of those things where you owe me vulnerability because i asked you for a hug

Rose laughs wetly.

‘I _would_ think that,’ she says, because she can’t quite text again yet. ‘I can’t pretend it isn’t a factor. But I want you to know and I can feel the promise of catharsis fluttering in my chest cavity.’

‘I wouldn’t judge you if you’d let yourself . . . you know.’

‘Do you have eyeliner in your bathroom?’ she asks. ‘Because I think I’ll repress all my emotions rather than brave public transportation without makeup, thank you.’

Yeah. The Lalondes sure don’t shield their faces, do they John. Super astute observation.

Rose coughs delicately and tucks her used tissue into her cardigan sleeve, reminding you so much of Mom. You stare at your phone to keep from making that observation.

ROSE: So we talked, probably the only time we’ve both been honest with each other.   
ROSE: And it hurt her, obviously it did. It hurt me too.   
ROSE: But at the end, I felt I understood her better.   
ROSE: I felt I loved her better.  
ROSE: I know she loves me now.  
ROSE: And she knows I know that.  
ROSE: Have you noticed that we’re better than we were?  
DAVE: im a very self absorbed person  
ROSE: No, you’re really not.  
DAVE: look i dont know what to tell you  
DAVE: i stopped looking at the way you and mom are when i was a kid because i didnt want to deal with it  
DAVE: i thought you had the good one and you were really mean about it  
DAVE: which like  
DAVE: no  
DAVE: but yeah mr honest communication and confrontation over here so obviously i cleared it up with you and everything was chill  
DAVE: oh wait no i just decided that i wouldnt look  
DAVE: and then i got it  
DAVE: i understood the SHIT out of it eventually  
DAVE: so i really couldnt look then because one thing to be like that to her kid she never saw  
DAVE: i hated that you had that  
DAVE: id rather go another round through my childhood than hurt you and its weird?? that thats not just the default position  
ROSE: Dave...  
DAVE: i know  
DAVE: no i do  
DAVE: what youre saying makes sense and lets be real i dont have a whole binder full of theories on why mom is the way she is to overwrite so i can just accept this  
DAVE: i see her like three times a year what does it even matter  
ROSE: It matters a little.  
ROSE: It could, anyway.  
ROSE: If you’re going to try with Dirk, I don’t think trying with her is out of the question.

You swallow and grit your teeth against all these _stupid_ emotions. You need to be strong for Rose right now.

DAVE: god its just going to hurt so fucking much  
ROSE: You know I  
ROSE: I care for you

Yeah. You should probably thank her.

DAVE: duh its so obvious its honestly a bit sad now  
DAVE: like christ lalonde maybe give me some room to breathe youre scaring away the bitches  
ROSE: I know you love me too, asshole.  
DAVE: that right there just earned you a prize  
DAVE: a nobel prize for discovering something nobody ever thought before ever  
DAVE: oh wait its a thats really fucking clear to anyone who knows us prize  
DAVE: they look similar so you can see why i made the mistake  
DAVE: and youre usually kinda smart so its like why would you even think that was remotely newsworthy

She sneaks her feet from under yours and curls her toes against the top of your feet. Huh, it is kind of comforting. You want to hug her so bad it’s like a stabbing in your sternum, it’s like your eyes are being pressed inexorably out from the inside of your skull, it’s like your arms and legs have been bitten by a thousand mosquitoes. 

Wait, you can.

‘Hey,’ you say, turning around onto the couch normally and holding your arms out. 

‘This is so fucking embarrassing,’ she says. 

But she hugs you back. She’s real bad at it. It’s not a funny quirk that she’s bad at hugging. You’re both so fucking messed up.


End file.
